Excited about Bloodstained? (offical stuff only)

They would be locked in a way, as you won't get them at a higher level, but having them in a chest you can't open at a higher level but can still see seems too much like a middle finger to players, so including a post-credits "You have received X!  Saving..." is probably the better way to go.

As you seem to like thoughts about design decisions and such, here's some more:

The real fun here, if this is implemented, is anticipating item and skill synergy and making boss-fights where these are present non-trivial. For example, as a normal player, a boss that charges up for a few seconds and releases a slash attack that hits once for massive damage is threatening... if you get hit. For a player with a %dmg build, assuming the skill or item is something like "Every time you take dmg, lose 20% of your HP", that slash isn't scary at all, but a stream of locusts that hits 20+ times for crap damage is suddenly lethal. So you want to include several multihit attacks (or break down normal attacks into multihits that do the same damage total) enough to make it challenging for a particular build without annoying players who don't use that build (and even just seeing 3 numbers instead of 1 will annoy some people), while making sure those stream-of-hit attacks can be avoided in a way that doesn't rely on skills or spells that a lowbie won't have or be able to use without certain items, because level 1 cap needs to be completable without using exploits. It might be damn-near-impossible, but it can't be actually impossible, or players will complain that the devs are forcing them to get a certain spell or drop to actually finish the challenge, and they'd be right.

But there are more issues: For example, you have a heal spell that heals a huge amount but is an MP guzzler. How does this work with the %dmg player if they equip a "use HP instead of MP" accessory? Does this essentially give them a free heal that heals them to full health every time, or do you set healing spells to only heal % as well when %dmg is active? If so, how do you tweak that? It can't be "All dmg or healing takes away or adds 20% of your HP", as a medium-to-quick 1HP-per-tick healing spell suddenly becomes massively overpowered (as does a quick hitting multihit weapon with some form of leech life active), so it's now a choice of all are fixed % based (quick passive heal exploits and leech life exploits), none are % based (massive heal exploits), all are percent based but have variable percents (now test all those, change, retest, change again and hopefully find some sort of decent range, and don't forget to set alternate tooltips during %dmg/heal active times), or some are and some aren't (insert complaints about being arbitrary). Of course, you could simply remove items that allow you to use HP instead of MP for spells and such, but then how does a level 1 character use spells (most of which likely cost more than the MP a level 1 character has, even if spell costs decrease with mastery gained) during their playthrough? If you leave it in, including something that reduces the HP cost is a must so players don't insta-kill themselves casting fireball with "use HP instead of MP" active. Or... do you make all spells use a fixed % of MP? Then you have the issue of players not feeling like they're growing in power in certain ways (being able to spam several uses of a powerful spell when you could previously only use it once or twice is a nice, easy indicator of power growth). Alternatively, you could tweak heal-over-time skills to heal more per tick but tick less often, which I would do. I could go on, but the point is that a level 1 cap challenge is going to add some challenges regarding balancing and design decisions. They aren't insurmountable, but they're there.

Granted, the inclusion of those items in normal mode (no imposed level cap) will also be problematic, but when you have the option to hit level 100 and curbstomp pretty much anything in the game, these items are a lesser concern, as the hits you're taking as a player of that level probably aren't doing anything near 20%, or even 10%, of your HP, so equipping that particular item would make the game MORE challenging, not less... which is yet another reason to include it (say I want to keep my level 100 character and have challenging fights again without having to resort to using lower statted equipment or doing naked runs).

EDIT: On the topic of leechlife, it could be set up with an MP cost that is a drain-over-time and not dirt cheap (meaning it burns through normal-level-1 MP in a few ticks or uses and becomes prohibitively expensive when used if it costs static% of HP to use, as you would be losing life faster than you're gaining it unless you have a fast multihit attack and an enemy willing to stand there doing pretty much nothing).

I like these problems.  They give my brain something to chew on while I do other things.

just wondering who is exited about Asynchronous Multiplayer?

Considering we have very little indication as to what this really means... I'm excited for the possibilities.

I'm hoping for some kind of revenge system a'la Shadow of Mordor. Imagine if your friend dies fighting a guardian knight and in your game you get a "bounty" for that same enemy to avenge your friend! Possibly increasing the drop chance for rare items or something.

The possibilities are endless, so the potential definitely has me excited.

I like it if it means you can select the speed run world record holder and have them as a ghost that you're trying to beat. It would push the record to be as best as humanly possible.

Other than that, I think Async might be cool because I could see how all you folks somehow affect my playthrough.

If you like that idea you should definitely look into Shadow of Mordor. Super fun game with great async multiplayer components.

The music is actually one of the biggest things I'm excited about. Sometimes I just listen to the theme on loop because I enjoy it so much.

how do you guys think the reto lv are gonna play? will you walk into a room and boom it's 8-16bit? or will there be a bit more of a warning. like the hallway before it shows pixel graphics

Well certainly this is a very good way to do that, it's even possible to get some funny reactions from miriam, lol.

So, are you guys expecting hand drawn backgrounds or 3D? Of course hand drawn would be perfect, but there is money to do that, since we are getting the biggest IGA's castle ever?